Choosing Sides
by Karis Artemisia Judith
Summary: Before he got married, Kristoff had a vague idea that married couples slept on opposite sides of the bed...after his marriage, he quickly learns that there is no 'his' side. The left side of the bed belongs to Anna. The right side of the bed belongs to Anna. Kristoff also belongs to Anna, and if he tries to move away from her she pursues him in her sleep.


Before he got married, Kristoff had a vague idea that married couples slept on opposite sides of the bed. He heard men mention it in passing—'the dog sleeps by my side of the bed and trips me when I get up,' 'my wife insists on keeping an extra blanket on her side of the bed, then she steals my blanket,' 'my side of the mattress is hard as rock.' It seemed clear enough. Husbands slept on one side, wives on the other. He guessed, when he eventually paused to consider the question, that couples met in the middle to take advantage of their marital rights, and then retreated to their respective sides to avoid the resulting damp spot (another piece of knowledge absorbed from listening to men complain—'my wife always manages to make sure that the damp spot is on my side.')

On the first night of Kristoff's marriage he doesn't think about sides. He is very busy thinking about Anna—Anna biting her lip, Anna blushing pinkly all over her body, Anna demanding to know why he was still all the way over there and with his clothes still on, Anna pressing trembling hands to his chest and bravely lifting her face to kiss him. He is preoccupied with the question of Anna most of the night, and falls asleep close to dawn with her wrapped around him, too tired to notice that he's on the wet spot.

Later he remembers about sides, and after he and Anna are both flushed and panting he rouses enough to kiss her and attempts to retreat to 'his' side. It does not work, because Anna blinks at him with confusion in her blue eyes for a moment and then scoots firmly into his territory to curl up against him. He doesn't have the willpower to explain that she's supposed to be on the other side of the bed, even when she begins to snore in his ear.

Kristoff never does find the heart to explain to Anna that she's doing it wrong, but he quickly learns that there is no 'his' side. The left side of the bed belongs to Anna. The right side of the bed belongs to Anna. Kristoff also belongs to Anna, and if he tries to move away from her she pursues him in her sleep, grumbling and gravitating toward his warmth like a flower tracking the path of the sun. A very clingy, sharp elbowed, snoring, drooling flower. No matter what he did or where he moved on the bed—which was large enough for three people to sleep in it without touching each other at all—he ended up with Anna wrapped around him like a creeping vine, clinging to him with all of her unexpected wiry strength.

Maybe it wouldn't have started to bother him so much if his days weren't suddenly so full of starched collars and uncomfortably tight pants and stifling hot rooms full of noise and people. He'd thought that he was prepared—there'd been plenty of what Anna called 'royal nonsense' during their engagement, but apparently their wedding had set off a season of intense diplomatic attention. Kristoff wondered if all the other countries had gotten together and drawn up a schedule to make sure that they would arrive one after the other instead of all at once. If they'd arrived all at once then they could have gotten everything over with, but instead every time one diplomatic envoy was gotten rid of another one seemed to be arriving. And there had to be balls. There had to be formal outings. There had to be stiff jackets and smiling, and there had to be Kristoff with Anna on his arm, because all these things were supposed to be for them. As much as he liked to have Anna wrapped around his body at other times, after long days of royal nonsense even her slight form felt stifling, as she smothered him with her hair and breathed into his ear.

He never would have believed that he would want Anna to touch him less, if he'd asked himself the question a month ago, but one night it was too much. He couldn't get to sleep with Anna's knee in his ribs and he was toohot. If he's been alone he would have kicked the blankets away, but that would have woken his wife (_his wife,_ even when he was hot and grumpy the word was a soft tenderness in his mind). Besides, Anna always needed to be under the coverlet. He was extremely careful about it—once, after they'd finished exercising their marital rights on each other, with all the bedding shoved out of the way to the foot of the bed, he'd been drifting into sleep when Anna had shivered beside him. That was it. As soon their lovemaking was finished the blankets had to be pulled back up and tucked around Anna, and he kept them that way all night, since he was frequently awake anyway. No matter how much Anna squirmed and wriggled in her sleep, she stayed covered up. Even now, as he carefully pried her off of him and edged away he made sure that the blanket stayed in place, lifting it only enough for him to slide out of the bed.

Perversely, considering how much she sprawled out usually, as soon as he was gone Anna curled herself up into a small lump under the covers and her snoring stopped. He shook his head, staring down at her ruefully, adjusting the bedding around her shoulders before turning away. By feel he found a loose shirt and pants to put on—a habit he'd picked up quickly, because in the castle you never knew when someone might show up and casual nudity was apparently frowned upon—and went to the cushioned window seat.

When it was time for them to have a suite of rooms to themselves, Anna had chosen this one for the sake of the big window. It was the best view of the north mountain, the snowy and dangerous terrain that Kristoff knew so well. His home…except not anymore. Now his home was a castle that somehow managed to feel oppressive despite the wide doors and lofty ceilings, stifling despite the fact that the stone rooms were always chilly. It was the smell, Kristoff decided. The castle had a smell, a smell of floor polish and expensive wax candles and dust. It was the smell that was so oppressive. He pressed his hand to the cold glass of the window, wishing he could open it and get a breath of real air, mountain air, cold and clean and smelling of ice—but that might wake Anna, might make her shiver. He settled for leaning his cheek against the glass and staring out at the moonlit mountain, wishing he could lose himself among the trees and the snow tomorrow instead of putting on another stiff shirt. The mountain looked impossibly distant.

"Kristoff?"

The sleepy mumble came from the bed, where Anna's mussed, fluffy head had lifted from the pillow. She rubbed at her eyes, sitting up, blinking away the sleep so that she could look for him. "Hi?" she said, spotting him in the window.

"Hey."

She sat studying him blearily for a moment, moonlight turning her into a study of silvery white skin and soft shadows, and then she scooted to the edge of the bed. Both of them had given up bothering with any kind of nightclothes—things just ended up on the floor, and they never had the energy to find nightgowns and shirts and put them back on before going to sleep—but Anna dragged the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her against the chill of the stone. It trailed behind her like the train of a gown as she came to stand next to him, looking from him to the window. To the mountain.

"Do you miss it?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes. I guess. It feels…weird."

"Is feeling weird what woke you up?"

"No, I was just…awake."

Anna bit her lip, fiddling with the edge of her improvised toga. "Do you…like sleeping with me?"

"I…ah…" He fumbled. Some alarm in his mind was telling him that this was one of the dangerous questions, one of the tests that marriage was made of, the sort of trick question that so many other men had felt the need to warn him about as soon as he became engaged. But he could never lie to her, not to Anna. "Sometimes I don't sleep very well," he said finally.

She nodded. "Because of me."

He shrugged again. "Because…I'm just not used to it. This. You. Um."

"Kristoff," Anna reached out to touch his shoulder lightly. "I know you don't like all the royal nonsense, the ambassadors and things. And I know you…you aren't sleeping very much. Um…" She looked down at her hand instead of at him. "You know, part of what makes a suite of rooms for married couples a suite is that…is that there's a second bedroom."

"Huh?"

She jerked her chin at a door across the room, one that he's assumed went into one of her closets. She seemed to have several closets, plus her dressing room. "Through there, there's a whole other bedroom. Lots of…lots of married couples don't sleep together at night. It used to be considered kind of vulgar."

"What? How is it vulgar for _married_ people to sleep together, when they—"

"I think that's why? I don't really get it either. But…" Anna pulled her hand from his shoulder so that she could clasp it anxiously around her other palm. "Look, I—I didn't mention the other room at first, because I wanted you to stay with me, and I kind of hoped you wouldn't want…but…I mean, you do need to _sleep_, you can't just not sleep. And…I know what it feels like. To feel trapped here. Like the walls are closing in…and I know you need open space, and if you can't go up to the mountain right now, maybe a room would be enough. And I know that you love me, even if you don't want to be with me all of the time. And…if you want to—to sleep in the other room, that would be okay, just…maybe you could leave the door open?"

He reached out to tug her into his lap, folding his arms around her as she tucked her head against his shoulder. "Thank you," he said quietly. She shrugged a little, as if to say it was nothing, but her hand clenched for a moment in the fabric of his shirt. Kristoff tightened his arms around her, his sweet, giving Anna. He had a sudden, sharp vision of her as she had been when he got out of bed, curled up so small, and then he imagined her like that every night, lonely and lost in the sea of bedding, giving up yet another thing that she wanted for someone else, and turned his head to kiss her hair. "Thank you, but…I don't want to sleep anywhere else. Well, I mean, I do sometimes want to sleep, but…it wouldn't be worth it. I never want to wake up anywhere else, Anna."

She lifted her head to look at him, a relieved smile lighting up her face. "Really? You won't leave me?"

"Never." He smoothed a tuft of fluffy hair back from her face. "Besides, I am legally and morally obligated to let you drool on me. The bishop will tell you so."

Anna thumped his chest lightly and laid her head back on his shoulder, snuggling up against him. "Idiot," she said lovingly, and he hugged her to him. "Hey," she said after a moment.

"Yeah?"

"Could we…could we try sleeping with the window open? Just a little?"

"Really?" Kristoff bent his head to look at her. "Are you sure? I was afraid you would get too cold."

"Me? Good grief, no! I know you like to stay covered up, but with you in the bed it gets like a furnace in here. I keep waking up all sweaty. But with the window open—why are you laughing? What's so funny?"

Kristoff just shook his head, chuckles vibrating in his chest and down his spine and filling his heart as he cupped Anna's face and kissed her.

There were no sides. There was just _them_.


End file.
